“At about 10 o’clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.”

― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

After years of being trapped inside, Mari has taken to watching the small things. Sometimes an ant will wonder in from a crack in the floor board, and she’ll follow it around the house to see what it does. Or perhaps the faucet will drip, and she’ll count how many seconds there are between each drip, at least until her mom got home and stepped on the ant, or tightened the pipe in the sink. Sometimes her mom brought back a book and something for her to play with, but for the most part there was nothing to do but sit around and tell stories. Every night, Mari would ask her mother what the outside was like, but it would just make her mom go quiet. “You’ll know someday,” she would say. And that was that. But after years of this, Mari’s curiosity got the best of her. She waited for her mom to leave and then waited until she was sure she was far gone, and then slipped out the front door. She couldn’t get back inside fast enough….

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Hello my little friendly geckos, thanks for the read! Just a reminder that you can see get a free copy of my poetry collection, The Moth that Haunts the Laundry Room, on Prolific Works. If you want to support my creative endeavors, you can also purchase the book on Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Don’t forget to check me out on Instagram (thegarrulousgecko) and twitter (@theheckingeck) for herpetofauna photos, poems, and more! If you write something based on one of my prompts and want to share it with me, I’ll even post it on the website! Happy writing